


a day where Nothing Is Going To Happen

by zeitgeistofnow



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: ?? it's just cecil running errands, Fluff, M/M, a day in the life, and being everyone's favorite surrogate gay older brother, literally no plot to this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-26
Updated: 2020-05-26
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:49:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24396049
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zeitgeistofnow/pseuds/zeitgeistofnow
Summary: a quiet day is rare in night vale, cecil reflects, and he likes it that way. rarely a boring day in his town, what with all the magically transporting airplanes and the tiny cities hidden beneath bowling alleys. all of it makes him appreciate the quiet days more.when cecil wakes up in the morning, his tattoos writhing on his shoulder, he knows deep in his bones that nothing is going to happen today.
Relationships: Carlos/Cecil Palmer
Comments: 10
Kudos: 62





	a day where Nothing Is Going To Happen

A quiet day is rare in Night Vale, Cecil reflects, and he likes it that way. Rarely a boring day in his town, what with all the magically transporting airplanes and the tiny cities hidden beneath bowling alleys. All of it makes him appreciate the quiet days more. 

When Cecil wakes up in the morning, his tattoos writhing on his shoulder, he knows deep in his bones that nothing is going to happen today. 

Carlos is already gone from the other side of the bed, his slippers missing from beside the door. This isn’t unusual. Carlos is a creature of habit through and through so even though it is a day where Nothing Is Going To Happen the other man is likely at his lab, doing science. 

Cecil doesn’t bother getting dressed, although he does cast a regretful eye at the jewelry he was planning on wearing today. They simply aren’t practical for a day around town. The jewelry casts a regretful eye back and Cecil blows the collection of rings a kiss. Then he simply shrugs on a sheer tie-dye dressing gown his mother gave him and pulls on a pair of fuzzy socks before shuffling into the kitchen. 

Carlos left him a lukewarm cup of coffee on the counter, although Cecil figures it wasn’t lukewarm when his husband left it. It’s in his favorite iteration of the NVCR yearly mugs, the one from back in 1983. He hums happily and wraps a hand around the mug. The coffee tastes like cranberries and tea tree with just a little bit of bitter coffee behind it, which means Carlos added enough of Cecil’s favorite creamer. The man really does know him. 

Once Cecil finishes his coffee and he steps into his buckled orange boots and trades his dressing gown for a thick green coat. It’s also Carlos’s, from before he came to Night Vale. He said it was for camping, but Cecil’s only gone camping once and he didn’t need a green coat. His shoulder bag goes over his shoulder and he smears chapstick on his lips. Cecil takes a deep breath before he opens the front door. He may know that Nothing Is Going To Happen, but he still never knows what will await him outside the door. Night Vale is full of surprises like that. 

As it turns out, nothing but Tamika Flynn, badly hidden behind his shrubbery. She’s slowly hacking at the branches out of boredom, and Cecil shakes his head. “Carlos just trimmed those, Tamika! You may be a council member, but that doesn’t give you the right to destroy my bushes.”

Tamika doesn’t look at all startled to hear him shouting at her. She sheathes her knife and stands up, ambling to his door. Her cable knit sweater is tucked into loose mens jeans, and there are fewer band-aids covering her arms and face than normal. Cecil attributes this to the quietude of the day. “Heya, Cecil.”

“What can I do for you, Tamika? I haven’t violated any laws recently, have I?” Technically, Cecil thinks, Carlos and his intimacy permit ran out yesterday morning so he  _ has,  _ but Tamika doesn’t know that. That’s the business of the sheriff and anyone else with eyes in the sky, and Tamika isn’t as all-seeing as the monolithic part of the City Council.

“Not that I know of, no.” She shrugs. “I dunno, I’m just not doin’ anything today. I was wondering if you wanted to get some orange juice?”

Cecil shudders at the mention of the fruit that had caused so much havoc and Tamika amends herself.

“Coffee, then? It’s lookin’ to be a quiet day.” She puts a hand above her eyes as if to look out at the horizon, although in practice she’s just looking at the dark wood of Cecil’s front door.

Cecil hums. He  _ does  _ have to get to the City Hall to get that permit renewed, but a stop for coffee couldn’t hurt.

Tamika orders coffee, black, and pours a single cup of hazelnut creamer into her cup. Cecil remembers in the nick of time that he’s already had his mornings caffeine, thank you. He buys a scone and the collection of baristas behind the counter thank him for his purchase in a chorus of gravely voices. They say nothing to Tamika, although the one closest to her shies away in terror. 

“I like it that way,” she says as they walk to a table. “I think it’s funny when grown men are scared of me. Black girl magic, you know.”

“I’m not scared of you,” Cecil says. His scone tastes like cardboard but in an inexplicably enticing way. He takes another bite and half the pastry falls away in crumbs. 

“Yeah, ‘cos I don’t want you to be.” Tamika smiles brightly at Cecil the way only a teenage girl can. “I could make you very, very scared.”

“Hm.” Cecil tosses the rest of his scone in his mouth. “Maybe. I don’t scare easily. Your selection of poetry doesn’t terrify me.”

“Poetry isn’t the only thing I have,” Tamika says offhandedly. “I’m bored of this conversation, though. Have I told you about Zivah?”

Cecil mentally scrolls through the list of high schoolers he knows and concludes that no one named Zivah is on it. “No, I’ve never met her. What’s she like?”

“Oh, beautiful. Tall. She wears a black hijab with lightning bolts on it and she’s in my militia.” Tamika squints at Cecil across the tiny table. “I’m  _ sure  _ you two have met, but it’s fine if you don’t remember. Anyway, I was sparring with Michael and he says that Ezra says that she broke up with Penny, which like.” Tamika purses her lips. “Good riddance, because Penny is a business major and the only thing about her that’s anywhere near attractive is her nose and Michael says Kiki says it’s fake, anyway.”

“Oh, ew,” Cecil agrees. “She sounds terrible.”

“Thanks for agreeing! And also she’s a senior in college and Zivah just graduated high school last year, which is an age difference that’s a little iffy, I think.”

Cecil does some mental math, which is a bit more difficult than he’d like to admit, and says, “Zivah’s the same age as you then, right?”

“Right.” Tamika splays her hands on the table. “Anyway, Zivah’s single now, which means that I have probably… a week before someone asks her out, and a 40ish percent chance she says yes. I need a game plan. Cecil, you’re married. How’d you do it?”

Cecil smiles benevolently and signals to a stay barista for another scone. “Is this why you were sculking outside my house so early this morning?”

“It was hardly early,” Tamika grouses. “You sleep like the dead.”

It’s two hour before Tamika and Cecil make a plan that they both deem operable, which messes up Cecil’s schedule for the day. Not that he really had one, but he probably won’t have the time to mill around he was hoping. No sense in mourning, though, and helping the girl was a better use of Cecil’s time than anything else would have been. 

Cecil and Tamika walk to City Hall together and part ways in the grand hall: Tamika to the City Council’s vast chambers and Cecil to the small office for permits. The woman behind the desk is nothing but bones and clothes that went out of fashion in 2006. Cecil makes a face as he walks into the room, and she grimaces back at him.

“How can I help  _ you,  _ Mr. Palmer?” Her tone is nasal, which is strange because she doesn’t have a nose. Cecil stands on the threshold of the door and picks at his nails.

“Just need a permit renewed. Thanks.” He’s not sure where this animosity is coming from, and he certainly doesn’t care. He’s decided to stop into Dark Owl records before going to Carlos’s lab before going to work and if he starts hashing something out with this woman he won’t have time. He might not enjoy having his music taste mocked by Michelle, but he’s fond of her the same way one is fond of a much younger teenage sibling. She’s petulant and Cecil finds conversations with her sometimes demoralizing, but he certainly doesn’t want anything bad to happen to her and her shop. And he thinks she’s just as fond of him as he is of her- she still orders his Woody Guthrie albums from wherever she gets music. In return, Cecil stops in to keep her company.

As Cecil thinks very hard about his relationship with Michelle, the woman at the desk takes out a thick file and starts to sort through it, looking for his expired permit. 

“Ah,” Cecil says helpfully, “It’s the intimacy permit.”

The woman sneers, although Cecil isn’t sure how she can without lips. “You sound so pretentious. It’s called the sexy times permit.”

“I-oh. Ah, okay.” Cecil decides to stop trying to be helpful and to wait patiently. It’s another ten minutes of quiet rustling papers and Cecil resisting the urge to pull out his cell phone before the woman finds the right sheet. Cecil can barely see the permit text underneath centuries of renewal stamps. A moment later another is added to the multitude and the woman gives Cecil a curt nod.

“All finished. I’ll be seeing you later, Mr. Palmer.”

“I’m sure you will.”

Dark Owl Records is in a brick building that is made of the same materials of the other brick buildings in a row next to it. Somehow the bricks seem darker than the other buildings, but maybe that’s just the vibes of the store. The sign sticking out above the door is of a black record and if Cecil looks at it just out of the corners of his eyes it looks like it’s spinning. 

Cecil sticks his hands in the pockets of his coat and strolls inside like the middle aged man he is. Michelle is behind the counter, thank god. She might be demoralizing sometimes, but the rest of the staff is downright aggressive. Maureen is  _ also  _ behind the counter. Well, not behind it, but sitting cross-legged next to the cash register. Cecil never let her sit on the counter in the recording booth.

“Sup, Cecil?” Maureen says. Cecil knows enough about youth slang to know that she’s not actually asking. He nods back in greeting.

“Are you here for your Woody Guthrie album?” Michelle asks. 

“Yes, and Carlos’s King Princess vinyl.” 

“Ugh.” Michelle sounds a little disgusted, but she still holds the CD and record out to him. “God, singer-songwriter is  _ so  _ last century.”

“I was alive last century,” Cecil says mildly, tucking the albums into his shoulder bag.

“Ha, you’re  _ so  _ old. Bet you were around before you had to pay for your music, dinosaur.” Michelle holds out a hand for payment and Cecil pours a collection of cool rocks he found into her palm. She drops them, one by one, into the tip jar. 

“You millennials,” Cecil says, mockingly shaking a fist. “Darn you.” There’s a slightly awkward pause and Maureen narrows her eyes at Cecil. “So,” he says. He doesn’t meet Maureen’s gaze. “How’s the shop going? I saw you didn’t have to have anymore fundraising parties.”

“Yeah, thank whoever’s up there for that. Or down there, I guess.” Michelle shrugs. “Dark Owl Records is just going along with being Burger Barn Gladtown Records Express’s sugar baby. It’s a little bit degrading, but it lets us keep the shop. We’re thinking of starting another band.”

Cecil knows. ‘Dark Owl Records considers starting another band’ was in the community calendar yesterday. “Oh, sounds neat. What kinda music?”

“Fuzzcore,” Michelle says. “It’s kinda like… the feeling you get, late at night. You know in the summer when it’s too hot for covers and you can feel yourself sweating out all the water you drank by the pool that day? And whenever you touch the person in bed next to you your skin sticks and turns red when you pull away? And then, at 2:53 in the morning the heat breaks and you half-wake because you’re getting goosebumps all the way up your legs and you sleepily pull a thin sheet up to cover your whole body, not even really noticing and you think you feel how a body in a morgue feels except you don’t really think that because you’re so tired? It’s like that but music, I guess.” She looks warily at Cecil. “I wouldn’t expect you to get it, so it’s fine if you think it’s dumb. I don’t care what you think.”

“No,” Cecil says. “That sounds really cool. I know exactly what you’re talking about. What instrument do you play in the band?”

Michelle scowls and Maureen scoffs. “There are no  _ instruments.  _ This music is just like, the vibes. The feeling of it.”

“Oh.” Cecil shakes his head and playfully knocks himself on the head. “Of course.” He checks his watch and nods up at the girls, starting to turn toward the door. “I should probably start getting on my-”

“Hey Cecil,” Maureen says, stretching her legs and dangling them off the side of the counter. “Did you hear about Chelsea’s new girlfriend?”

Cecil stops and turns back to the counter. He really should go going, it’s a few hours past lunchtime. But, he reasons, it’s important to stay up-to-date on Night Vale goings-on for his job. “Chelsea Dubinski?”

“Yeah, uh, the assistant professor of chemistry. Ugh, her classes were so stupid. Anyway, she’s dating this woman named… Suzanne?” Maureen looks at Michelle for confirmation, who nods and lights the end of her candy cigarette. Cecil thinks that he should glower disapprovingly at her, but he’s too interested in what Maureen has to say.

“Suzanne  _ Thurgood?” _

“Yeah, the medical board woman. With the uh, hawks? She smokes and fucking stinks. I went to the hospital once to get a mammogram because I had a lump or whatever, and she straight up told me to leave and then her hawk blew smoke in my face.”

“Oh my god, I’m so sorry! Did everything turn out okay?” Cecil covers his mouth with one hand and Maureen waves his concern away.

“Yeah, turned out the lump was only a lipoma, which is benign or whatever. It was hard to understand my doctor through her plague mask, but I didn’t have to take any more tests. I just smelled like smoke for a week.”

“It was  _ gross, _ ” Michelle says. She bites off the end of her candy cigarette and holds the remaining inch and a half between two fingers.

“She wouldn’t kiss me until it stopped stinking,” Maureen says and makes a face at Michelle.

Cecil smiles at the pair. Ah, young love. “Well, if you see Suzanne, tell her Chelsea is too good for her. You know Chelsea is my second favorite scientist in this town?”

Maureen looks sheepish. “Yeah, she’s um. Not that bad. I just flunked her class.”

“Understandable,” Cecil consoles. “I flunked every class I took in college and it didn’t matter a whit.” He checks his watch again. “I have to go see my  _ favorite  _ scientist now, so I’ll see you two later. Stop by the station whenever you need something broadcasted!”

“Um, I’m never stepping foot in there again,” Maureen says, but she waves goodbye.

Cecil’s holding a bag of food in each arm when he swans into Carlos’s lab. He’s memorised the Chipotl é orders of all the scientists and he uses this knowledge whenever it’s reasonable, which is often. He’s never known a scientist who thinks far enough ahead to bring their own lunch so he’s always welcomed with open arms when he brings food. 

“Hey, Carlos,” He hums, dropping one bag on the counter by Carlos’s team and taking the one with his and Carlos’s orders to the desk Carlos is at. “How are you feeling?”

Carlos looks up from his work, his expression still contemplative. “Well, I’m relieved that Nothing Is Happening today, because I can get some paperwork done. But I’m also bored, because paperwork is really boring. I saw a hare outside my window earlier, which I’m happy about, but I think the sheriff’s secret police officer on the corner shot it a few seconds later, which I’m sad about. Overall, though, I’m just feeling really focused today! All my other emotions are just playing backup and they’re not very overwhelming.”

“Oh, that’s good.” Cecil perches on a stool next to his husband and starts to open his bowl. “No hazardous chemicals today, right?”

“Nope, this counter is late-lunch-safe.” Carlos kisses Cecil’s cheekbone and peels off the top layer of aluminum foil from his burrito. “Thanks for grabbing food, Ceec.”

“Oh, no problem. I was just at Dark Owl Records getting our music.” Cecil pats his bag. He can feel the outline of Carlos’s album through the quilted fabric. 

“Aw, thank you. I’ve been meaning to pick that up for weeks.”

“I know, babe. I wanted to check in with Michelle, anyway. They’re starting a band again! And you’ll never guess what Maureen said about Chelsea-”

“That she’s dating Doctor Thurgood?” Carlos takes a bite of his burrito and chews, looking smug. “The science community is pretty small in Night Vale. Word gets around.”

Stan groans from across the room. “Word gets around  _ too much.  _ I got my tonsils removed a few weeks ago and I had Joel Eisenberg asking me which dinosaurs did my procedure. Like, excuse me, my dinosaurs are  _ private.  _ I told him they didn’t fly and he fucked off, but still.” Cecil laughs and Stan shoots him a thumbs up. “By the way, thanks for the food. I’ll venmo you the money once my hands aren’t covered in corrosive acid. Don’t want to melt my phone.”

Cecil casts a nervous look at the man’s ungloved hands, but he turns back to Carlos. “And I got coffee with Tamika Flynn this morning. She said because I was so old and gay I was the only adult she trusted to give her advice about her crush.”

“Doesn’t she have parents?” Carlos tosses the rest of his burrito in his mouth and wipes his hands on his black jeans.

“Well, did you talk to your parents about your crushes?” Cecil pauses. “And now that I think about it, I’m not sure she does. I’ve certainly never met them, and I’ve met near everyone in Night Vale.”

Carlos runs a hand through the other man's hair. “My beautiful local celebrity.”

“I would hardly say-” Cecil protests.

“I would hardly say you get to speak on your own celebrity. I’m a scientist, honey, I know these things.” Carlos smiles winningly and shuffles a stack of papers around. They’re covered in scribbles and red ink. A few, Cecil can see, are simply Carlos’s favorite numbers, written neatly in his husband’s usually messy writing. They’re surrounded on all sides by towers of journals- the spines of each and every one is bent like they’d been opened again and again. 

“What are you working on?”

“Oh, not much.” Carlos shrugs and his brow furrows, making him look much older than the 40 years he is. Only for a moment, though, before he is back to his usually small smile. “I figured I’d take the quiet day to review some of my journals from the desert otherworld. I still don’t understand it, and-”

“That bothers you.” Cecil finishes.

Carlos shoots him a tight smile. “Yeah, I guess it does.” He starts to fidget with the chewie necklace that hangs just below his sternum and Cecil looks around at the journals.

“There are so  _ many, _ ” he says. “You wrote all this in one year?”

Carlos doesn’t meet Cecil's eyes. “There wasn’t much to do but write. It doesn’t matter, anyway. Oh! Did you remember to get our permit renewed? I meant to do it yesterday when I got milk and cabbage from Ralph’s, but there was that giant ‘possum downtown and I had to try to tame it so I never got to the city hall. That opossum was  _ fascinating!  _ I meant to bring it back to the lab to study it more, but it vanished once I got it to calm down enough to shrink back to its normal size.” Carlos looks worried. “I hope it’s not linked to its anger- it caused a lot of damage, I wouldn’t want it to come back.”

“You looked so heroic, wrangling that huge beast back to its natural size. Very cowboy-y.” Cecil says, bringing a hand up to rub circles right behind Carlos’s ear.

Carlos leans into his touch and grins blindingly. Teeth like a military cemetery, Cecil thinks, and barely keeps himself from swooning. “Well, I wasn’t a 4-H kid most of high school for nothing.”

Cecil swans into the station five minutes before he’s supposed to be on air. It’s a tad unprofessional, but he was busy helping his husband with science, and Station Management has been in a much better mood recently. His newest intern is watching some kind of YouTube video in the booth. Cecil can just barely hear the booming voices of… well, he thinks it’s that trio of brothers. He can’t remember if they’re fictional or not, but sometimes Carlos listens to their shows when he’s in the lab. 

Cecil takes a moment to adjust his clothes- it’s a testament to what he normally wears that no one but Carlos noticed he wore his pajamas all day. He clears his throat and raps on the glass separating him and his intern. They jump in their seat and put on their headphones, shooting him a thumbs up. 

Cecil sits down, clicks on his microphone, and nods to himself. 

**Author's Note:**

> \- this is SUPER self indulgent.. half the interactions in this r just wlw/mlm solidarity because like. it's what we deserve :3  
> \- comments and kudos make my day! xoxo find me on tumblr [@lazypigeon](https://lazypigeon.tumblr.com/)!


End file.
